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Our lab has an exciting opportunity to come join us in Cape Verde and assist with our data collection this season.

Background: Conservation of marine organisms is a true challenge as most remains to
be discovered from the oceans which cover about 70% of the world’s surface. Our project aims at using state-of the art molecular and telemetry techniques to develop novel conservation programs for the Cape Verde loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta).

Only recently scientists discovered that Cape Verde supports the third largest nesting
population in the world. Like all sea turtles, the loggerhead turtles are highly endangered of extinction and listed on the Red List of the IUCN. Robust scientific monitoring and preservation of genetic diversity of the Loggerhead turtle has therefore become a crucial necessity to identify future directions of conservation efforts.

Fieldwork: The fieldwork will be on 1km of beach on Sal Island. Beach patrols will be undertaken overnight and early morning. The candidate will be trained to run full data collection of individual turtles (including: ID Tagging, measurements, skin and blood sampling). Additionally, the assistant will help with satellite tagging and nest relocation as well as in the hatchery later in the season. The assistant will be expected to ensure that data is collected to the highest standards and will take on considerable levels of responsibility at times. The work will be varied and interesting, but extremely challenging. You can expect to learn and improve your practical field skills and be exposed to laboratory protocols.

Requirements: All training will be provided. However, the suitable research assistant needs to be dedicated to long hours in the field and capable of working independently. A good candidate will be happy working and making decisions independently, whilst being able to function for long periods within a team composed of a wide variety of volunteers, researchers and local workers. Ideally the successful candidate would either be a student or recent graduate holding a degree in a relevant discipline, wanting to gain more experience before continuing a career in a related field.

Minimum age of 18.

The candidate needs to be fluent in English and language skills in Portuguese or Creole would be beneficial.

To apply for this position please send a cover letter specifying why you would like to assist in this project, your CV, and names and contact details of two references to l.fouda@qmul.ac.uk and Chris Eizaguirre c.eizaguirre@qmul.ac.uk.

Deadline: Tuesday 26th June – applications will be considered until July 10th in the case no candidate is found before.

Funny Take On The New Old Spice Advert:Six ways the ad violates the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Absolutely Horrific Public Behaviour: An endangered Franciscana dolphin in Argentine has died after it washed up and beach-goers jostled to take selfies with it. Heartbreaking.

The First Elephant Orphanage Is To Open In Tanzania: Due to renewed and intense poaching the centre will be opened to rescue, rehabilitate, and eventually release elephants which have been separated from their mothers at a young age.

What have you been reading this week? Let me know in the comments below.

You can also follow along on the Deep Blue Conversations Facebook Page. I post interesting articles related to marine conservation, share awesome stories as well as photos from the marine conservation and environmental world in general. Come on over and have a look! I also have Twitter come and join the conversation you can find me as @Leila_Lula!

Southern Resident Killer Whales Baby Boom:Biggest boom since 1977, seen nine new calves since December 2014 and this January however, the sex ratio is inordinately biased towards males. We do not know why.

Le Sigh:Sighing is good for you! Without it your alveoli can collapse and struggle to reinflate themselves. You need to sigh roughly every five minutes (don’t worry it is involuntary!). See a video of Professor Jack Feldman of the University of California, whose team made the discovery, discussing it here.

What have you been reading this week? Let me know in the comments below.

You can also follow along on the Deep Blue Conversations Facebook Page. I post interesting articles related to marine conservation, share awesome stories as well as photos from the marine conservation and environmental world in general. Come on over and have a look! I also have Twitter come and join the conversation you can find me as @Leila_Lula!

A post of riveting reads from my travels around the internet this week! A selection of links, blogs, news articles, scholarly articles and images I am currently loving.

Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest Protected: Hurrah! 85% of the area will be PERMANENTLY off-limits to loggers. This is a spectacular coastal rainforest with a lot of amazing wildlife including Kermode “spirit” bears.

Elephant Poachers kill helicopter pilot: This is heartbreaking. Ivory poaching is one of the most despicable crimes and causing the loss of species. The pilot, Roger Gower, was shot when him and a safari guide went to investigate reports of three elephants having been killed by poachers. My thoughts are with his family.

Ship noise serious issue for killer whales:This topic will not be new news for regular readers of this blog or anyone who I have interacted with but good that it is getting more publicity!

Why do we not rid the world of mosquitoes?: They seem to cause all our woes, currently Zika. Read on to find out!

If we wrote about male scientist like we do female: There would be a lot more information on their appearance and family status! Twitter user @Daurmith has written up some funny bios for famous male scientists including Darwin and Feynmann.

Period Positive: Half the population gets them but we are never allowed to mention them, for fear of embarrassment and appearing ‘not good enough’ to do a task! Here’s to period positivity for female scientists and their male counterparts in the field! Twitter discussion curated into a Storify by @CarinaDSLR.

What have you been reading this week? Let me know in the comments below.

You can also follow along on the Deep Blue Conversations Facebook Page. I post interesting articles related to marine conservation, share awesome stories as well as photos from the marine conservation and environmental world in general. Come on over and have a look! I also have Twitter come and join the conversation you can find me as @Leila_Lula!